Making a (first century AD) tunic

[Cheyenne]

Hi Piotr,

There is evidence for the type of stitching that was used on ancient clothing. There are a couple of intact examples from north Africa which detail the stiches used.

The garment was usually woven in one piece on a large upright loom which would have been woven sideways (ie with the neck hole running vertically as the garment builds on the loom) and then edge finished with a type of square cord (or known as lucet in the medieval period). these would have then been joined together using a running, back or whip stitch on the edge of the garment.

I do have close up pictures of edge finished stitching - although these examples are 4th-6th century AD. The nahal haver tunic however, is much earlier and still has a similar edge finishing.

I use a whip stitch and role stitch double seam on the 1st/2nd century military tunics and I know the one I made for Mike Boyd (who posts on here) might be able to take a close up of the stitching on his tunic that I made for him. That tunic also conforms to the size of the stitching that is used on known originals (ie: between 1.2 - 2mm in stitch length)

Here are some pics of the detailing on some of the coptic textiles in the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester UK that I took last year.


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Pls note, these are not to be used in any commercial setting, I promised the museum they would be for reference only

Cheers